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-THE MOVING PICTURE WEEKLY
THE? OPEN" MARKET A GHASTLY JOKE
No. 255 Straight from the Shoulder Talk by Carl Laemmle President, Universal Film Manufacturing Company
Once more the exhibitor has been toyed with. Once more he has become the victim of a colossal joke — a joke in which there is no laugh for him !
Once more he really believed that the "open market" had at last come true. But he has found that what sounded fine in theory is a grim jest in practice.
Months ago the trade papers were filled with rich and rosy promises from producers. The editors busily interviewed this producer and that producer, asking each one if he really intended to sell his pictures on the open market plan. Each one gravely replied in the affirmative.
It was great press agent stuff.
The trade papers believed it. Each editor loudly heralded the fact that the millenium had come. And each editor modestly admitted that he had done this great work for the lowly exhibitor. Everybody was quite happy.
But—
Exhibitors now tell me that when they try to book one, two or three pictures they find it impossible. They must book thirty or forty or more. "Oh, yes," they are told, "you can book one or two if you like. In that case the price will be" — and then a price is named that is prohibitive.
What are YOU going to do to protect yourself from men who look you sweetly in the eye and lie to you ? Are you going to sit idly by and permit it, or are you going to tie up with the Universal, which has not only never bluffed you, but which is now making the best pictures in the business?